


The Toil's Left Its Mark

by tosca1390



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 21:10:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They were men of action, not language.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Toil's Left Its Mark

*

“You know space isn’t a playground, right?”

Jim grinned at McCoy over his half-empty beer, eyes bright as summer in the dim bar. “Maybe not your kind of playground, Bones, but I’ll make do.”

Rolling his eyes, McCoy sipped at his bourbon, glad for the dark in their corner of the bar. The night before they’re shipping off from space dock, and Jim still brimmed with excitement and light, despite weeks of meetings and paperwork and fighting tooth-and-nail for the crew he was loyal to, and who were loyal to him. The admiralty hadn’t wanted to give Jim his choices, but with Pike and Barnett, among others, backing him up, he’d won almost all his fights. 

Almost, being the operative word.

“Are we going to talk about it?” McCoy asked finally, drumming his fingers on the faintly sticky table.

Jim smiled sharply, something off-center in his gaze. “About how you’re going to survive in space?” 

“About me being in space in the first place,” McCoy said, huffing quietly.

Licking his lips, Jim swallowed down his beer, throat moving sharply. “You’re going to be on the Enterprise, and that’s that,” he said, shrugging.

Silent, McCoy watched Jim, the clench of his jaw, the flush at the top of his cheekbones. He knew Jim hadn’t gotten McCoy as CMO originally; Admirals were admirals, after all, and they wanted their best doctors as close to their own persons as possible. Besides, McCoy himself had originally wanted a ground assignment, research-based, not to rattle around in deep space for years. 

But, Pike had stepped in; said, in light of the _Narada_ incident (a small word for such a huge event, McCoy thought, and when had it even become an _incident_ goddamnit?), a doctor such as McCoy, who’d seen battle action and survived, even saved Pike himself after a hostage situation, was valuable enough to be given the choice between the Enterprise and another assignment.

This is what Pike had said, when McCoy’d been summoned to his office for a decision. McCoy didn’t give it a second thought; he wanted the Enterprise. He chose the Enterprise. Chose Jim.

Of course, Jim hadn’t said a word about it, hadn’t been allowed to (conflict of interest and all). Before and after, Jim had been his same self, blazing-bright and fast as lightning, running from meeting to meeting, seeing his mother and brother, currying favor with the higher-ups, observing the repairs to the ship alongside Scotty—really, this night had been the first alone time McCoy and Jim had had in some time, because McCoy had been busy too, setting up sickbay, collecting a staff of his own.

“Did you think I’d pick another assignment, Jim?” McCoy finally asked, the din of the bar a low buzz around them. 

Blinking, Jim pursed his lips. “I think you’d be stupid to pick anything over the Enterprise,” he said lightly, something edged underneath, something curious, a question he couldn’t bring himself to ask. 

“I don’t like ships so much,” McCoy muttered, finishing his bourbon and signaling for another from the curvy, pretty server. “I’m not in love with it like you are.”

“Then why’d you pick it? Christ, Bones, you could have stayed on Earth if you’d wanted,” Jim retorted, beer forgotten.

Quiet as his new drink arrived, McCoy glanced over Jim. He was all hard lines and angles now, a defensive stiffness McCoy hadn’t seen in a while. And the question in his eyes, the unspoken words flitting through the vivid blue, was one from years ago, from when McCoy began actively searching Jim out to study with, to eat with, to drink with. It was the choice, the _why pick me?_ that Jim had never understood, and that McCoy didn’t know how to explain.

Slowly, McCoy sipped his drink and steadied his eyes on Jim. “I told you, Jocelyn has the whole planet. I got nothing down here. My only family would be up in space, so why wouldn’t I be there too?” he said gruffly, teeth clenched. 

A moment of pure will passed between them, McCoy forcing a _I picked you, you idiot_ with his eyes, because that’s just not how they _talk_ , the two of them. They shared flasks on shuttles, got each other drunk on anniversaries and birth( _death_ )days, volunteered for flight sims together ( _McCoy couldn’t fly without Jim, now_ ), went to the Kobayashi Maru simulation even though they weren’t anywhere near command track, smuggled each other onto flagship starships, saved the world—

They were men of action, not language. So this, was the best McCoy could do.

Inch by inch, Jim settled and relaxed back into his chair, a real smile curving his mouth, the high color fading from his face. “Just admit it, you’d be bored without me,” he said.

McCoy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, terrible. Can’t imagine my life without stitching you back together three times a week,” he deadpanned.

Chuckling, Jim raised his nearly-empty glass. “You’ll be on the bridge when we set off, right?” he asked, a rare moment of pure earnestness that caught McCoy off-guard. “I want you there, Bones.”

The thought made his stomach turn. However, McCoy raised his glass and touched it to Jim’s with a gentle clink. “Yeah, kid. Of course,” he said before taking a long sip. 

As they drank, Jim kept his gaze, an odd something flashing in the deep blue that McCoy never could quite figure out.

*

Three years, six months, and eight days after Jim Kirk clapped him on the shoulder and told him to buckle up, Leonard McCoy’s world flipped on its head, just as it had when he’d first met Jim in a dingy little shuttle in Iowa. 

It began innocuously enough, as most things did when concerning Jim.

“Do you ever leave this place?”

McCoy spared Jim a glance over his shoulder. “Could say the same for you and the bridge.”

Jim smiled, light and easy, his face a reflection of another successful mission; this time, it was a routine supply run to a science research colony on Soltok IV, on the outskirts of Federation space. “That’s why I’ve got Spock. If I don’t leave, he’ll just choke me again.”

“Your comfort with that is astounding,” McCoy drawled, focused on the depleted storeroom in from of him. 

“It’s been three years, the odds of a repeat are low,” Jim said cheerily. 

“How reassuring.” McCoy sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ve been ransacked.”

“They didn’t have _any_ medical supplies, Bones. You saw it yourself,” Jim said, footsteps closing in behind McCoy. 

“I know. And _they’re_ scientists. Morons, the lot of them,” McCoy muttered as Jim came shoulder to shoulder with him, standing closer than perhaps necessary. His heat bled into McCoy, a hip nearly against his, but McCoy paid it no mind. Jim had always been like this, tactile and ignorant of personal space, no matter what it did to McCoy, igniting that small pit of warmth in his gut.

“They’re astrophysicists. You want to be out here working on wormholes?” Jim said with a laugh.

McCoy snorted. “Hell no.”

“Thought not,” Jim said, something like affection curling through his words. “You’d be on solid ground, though.”

“Space is nothing compared to the trouble you get into,” McCoy retorted, cocking an eyebrow at Jim. “Who’d be here to watch your fool neck?”

A strange look passed over Jim’s face, gone before McCoy could say a word to it. “No one does it quite like you, that’s for sure.” He grinned brightly, eyes still sparkling curiously. “I’ll get you more stuff at the next spaceport, Bones, I promise. Come have a drink with me.”

“Should put this place back together,” McCoy muttered. The idea of some sort of weird alien alcohol and Jim’s company sounded infinitely better. 

Gentle but insistent, Jim’s hands found their way to his shoulders, a shock of raw heat through his uniform. “M’Benga knows your system. C’mon, we’ll go play chess.”

“Do I look green-blooded and pointy to you?” McCoy asked dryly, letting Jim navigate him out of the storeroom and towards the Sickbay doors. “I don’t play chess.”

Another laugh, this time close to his ear, warm breath prickling the nape of his neck. “You look cranky, just how I like you, and I don’t care,” Jim said, his hands lingering across the breadth of McCoy’s shoulders.

Then, there was a faint tingle, a whisper of wonder in the back of McCoy’s mind. But then Jim dropped his hands, the doors swooshed behind him, and he immediately began reciting all the different ways he was going to beat McCoy in the matches, and the moment was gone. It would echo in McCoy’s mind in the middle of the night, when he was alone in a wide bed, but was lost by morning.

*

However, nothing was lost on Christine, apparently. 

“Chess?”

McCoy merely raised a brow at her as they reorganized the last bit of the storeroom the next day. “Yeah.”

“But you’re awful at chess,” she said.

“I’m aware,” he retorted. 

She tilted her head, eyes more green than blue in the storeroom light. “He asked you to play chess.”

“Did you lose the ability to hear overnight?” he asked, already exasperated from the day, and it wasn’t even past mid-shift yet. 

Pushing the last box of hypos into place, she turned to him, hands planted on her hips, an oddly knowing glint to her eyes. “You really think it was about chess, Doctor?”

McCoy didn’t know, but he sure as hell didn’t want the answer. 

At his stubborn, all-too-loud silence, she rolled her eyes. “Ball’s in your court now, Len,” she said finally before leaving him alone in the pristine storeroom. 

This kind of thing was precisely why McCoy hated chess. He was shit with strategy and manipulation, working pieces and puzzles into winning situations, preferring hands-on practice and technique, slow and steady and even. Jocelyn had been one for games and strategies, in such an unattractive way, too; she maneuvered him through the paces of their married life, but without art. He always knew he was being worked over, and how, and it grated his nerves, made him feel all kinds of stupid and ridiculous. 

Jim was full of games and plays, but he had an art to it, McCoy reckoned. After all, the kid had somehow weaseled his way so deeply into McCoy’s life that McCoy went into fucking _space_ with him, just because he’d asked (even though he really _hadn’t_ , not with words, just that night in the bar). McCoy had done a lot for Jim, just because he’d asked, and perhaps that was the crux of it; Jim asked, Jocelyn assumed. And with Jim, McCoy never felt like a pawn, like part of the game. 

He never realized there even was a game, until now.

At the end of Christine’s shift, as she put away the last padd and smoothed down the synthetic sheets of the nearest biobed, McCoy shuffled out of his office and stared her down. 

“What ball? What court?” he asked, grinding out the ridiculous words. 

Christine grinned brightly, and he wondered if Jim had given her some airborne smartass disease the last time he’d been guts-open in Sickbay. “You don’t play chess, Len.”

“Yeah, the whole ship knows by now,” he grouched. “So what?”

“So, it wasn’t about chess,” she said simply, eyes bright. “It’s never been about chess.”

Yeah. “Yeah,” he said slowly, fear heavy like lead in his stomach. It had been one very slow game of chess, but mostly talk and drinking and warm smiles, and Jim leaning forward, Jim holding his gaze, Jim blue and bright and fierce—

“Now it’s your turn,” she added helpfully. 

He scowled. “For what?”

On her way out the door, she turned and frowned. “You’re not this stupid. You know, for what.”

With that, and a smile and a nod, she left Sickbay, the door whooshing almost ominously behind her brisk frame. 

*

Distress calls were, in McCoy’s opinion, the worst types of missions, most likely because the chances of injury were always higher when there was already trouble brewing. 

In this case, with the call coming in from Soltok IV, McCoy _knew_ that there were going to be problems, because when it came to coming near so-claimed Cardassian space, there was hardly any room for diplomacy or negotiations, especially when it was clearly a trap for the famed Enterprise. It’d only been a few days since they’d dropped off the supplies, and the whole thing gave McCoy an odd curdling feeling in his gut; reading about Cardassians was one thing, but encountering them was entirely something else altogether. 

As usual, Jim checked in with McCoy in Sickbay before leaving with the away team. He looked well enough, McCoy thought, but for the worry lines at his eyes and mouth, deeper than usual. 

“I’m okay to go, right?” Jim asked lightly, leaning against the doorframe of the storeroom.

McCoy, busy gathering supplies for the upcoming injury count (because that’s just how away missions ended when Jim Kirk and company were concerned), spared him a glance over his shoulder. “My opinion hardly ever stops you anyway, Jim,” he said with gruff bemusement. “You don’t look very excited. This is right up your alley.”

“I think there’s going to be trouble,” Jim said, dropping his shoulders and relaxing his face in a way he only did in private, and only with a few select people onboard, McCoy included. “A lot of it. And—Bones, what if—“

“Jim, come on,” McCoy interrupted, turning to face him with an armful of anesthetic vials, because this was not a conversation to have, not now, when neither of them were ready for it. “This is hardly a no-win situation, and I don’t have time for you to die today,” he said brusquely. 

Swallowing hard, Jim stared at him, fingers curling in and out of fists. “I’ll try and keep that in mind,” he said finally.

McCoy cleared his throat gruffly, looking down at the purple, gleaming vials. “Besides, I reckon you and Spock will figure a way out of it. You always do.”

Jim smiled then, a slight, odd half-curve of his mouth. “And you’ll be waiting to put us back together.”

“Seems that’s what I’m here for,” McCoy said dryly. “Getting damn good at it, too.”

“That you are,” Jim said lightly, letting out a slow long breath before straightening his shoulders, the captain-bred tension back in the line of his body. “Spock doesn’t like our chances.”

“Logically?” McCoy asked, eyebrow arched to the sky.

“Seriously,” Jim said, suddenly somber and looking at McCoy like he was never going to see him in the flesh again, eyes moving slowly over the planes of his face. “The Cardassians knew we’d been there. They want us to come back, and they’re going to be ready for us.”

McCoy shoved aside the abrupt frisson of fear in his middle. “No one is ever ready for you, Jim. So go do what you have to do, and try to make your injuries small, because it’s been a long week and I’m low on supplies,” he said firmly, catching Jim’s gaze, strangely blue in the bright storeroom lights.

The curious look twisting Jim’s features settled and faded, leaving nothing but the sure and steady captain’s face everyone knew and trusted. “You know you like getting your hands on me,” he said with a smirk.

“Get the hell out of my Sickbay,” McCoy retorted without real fire, focused on images of split lips and scalded skin, Jim white-faced and stoic against pain. 

Jim’s smirk relaxed into a smile, wide and nearly heart-wrenching. “See you on the flip side, Bones.”

He nodded his head and was gone just like that, leaving McCoy with his arms full and mind whirring, wondering just how much of the supplies in his arms he’d have to use on Jim himself. 

*

It started slow, with members from the science colony coming in with minor injuries soon after the away team left the ship. Chekov, who had control of the bridge, kept checking in with McCoy every fifteen minutes, looking more anxious each time. That didn’t help the collection of nerves souring in McCoy’s stomach. By the time the away team began to stream into Sickbay, the place was in organized chaos, with McCoy barking orders with scary efficiency. The highest-ranked officer to come in so far was Sulu, and the nagging worry over Jim’s lack-of appearance haunted McCoy as he hunched over the helmsman’s bloody leg. 

“Quit your twitchin’, or I’ll never get the bleeding stopped,” he snapped at Sulu. “What the hell did this to you anyway?”

“Cardassians,” Sulu said through gritted teeth, looking grey around the mouth. “Had blades and strange-looking phasers.”

Shaking his head, McCoy pressed a coagulant hypo into Sulu’s thigh with a long hiss. The bleed began to slow as the clotting process sped up. “Thought you’d be there until the bitter end,” he said, distracted by his search for a portable regenerator. 

“The captain ordered Scotty to beam me up, because of the bleed. He and Spock are still down there.”

McCoy looked up from the shiny-pink skin then, jaw clenched. “Alone?”

Face tight with pain and something like regret, Sulu nodded. “Them and the remaining Cardassians.” 

Setting aside the regenerator, McCoy swiped at his brow with a bloody sleeve and pressed in another hypo, this time for pain relief. “Give the skin a few minutes to settle, then get up to the bridge. Reckon they’ll need you soon,” he said tersely before walking to Chapel. “Going to the transporter room—“

She waved him off, shoving a medikit into his hands. “M’Benga and I have it under control, Doctor. Go on.”

McCoy took off at a run once the doors of Sickbay swooshed shut behind him, a horrible, sick skip in his pulse, his limbs heavy. 

*

After what felt like ages, Jim appeared in Spock’s arms on the transporter pad, face pasty-white, the mustard-gold of his uniform stained deep red and alien gray-blue, his shirt slashed open, as was his chest. Spock didn’t look nearly as bad, cuts and abrasions covering his thin, pursed face; all McCoy saw was red and gold, a horrible mixture, socking him hard in the gut. He could barely form words; it took Scotty stripping off his red uniform shirt to act as a poor-man’s tourniquet to snap him back into action. 

In the end, Jim nearly died, and for the life of McCoy, he didn’t think it’d ever been so damn close.

He didn’t remember a thing with clarity, afterwards. It was all rote, knowing Jim’s allergies without needing his chart, finding the right hypo, barking orders with fierce efficiency, his hands never shaking, just working slow and steady but with purpose despite all of Jim’s open skin beneath him. His memories were all blood bubbling on Jim’s mouth, his fingers slick with red, the way he couldn’t get a grip on anything useful, it was all scarlet wet and danger and shouting at Jim to _stop moving, goddamnit_ , because Jim kept trying to grab McCoy’s hand, his face, his hair, Jim’s lips moving soundlessly, fingers curling weakly over his rapidly-moving wrists—

“Doctor—He’s fine—Leonard—“

Christine’s slim hands tugged at him, finally tore him from Jim’s prone body. Crazed and covered in blood, he stared at her, unable to blink. 

“He’s all patched-up,” she said firmly, a swipe of rust-red across her pale, sweaty cheek. “He needs time with the transfusion machine, but he’s fine. You’re done, Len,” she added softly, the words hanging just between them. “You saved him.”

Her cool fingers curled around his wrists, making prints against his gloves, in Jim’s lost blood, and grounded him, kept him from flying off into nightmares drenched in red. He nodded, shaking her off gently, and then turned to Spock, who then looked more gray than green.

“Let me check you out, Spock,” he said, voice cracked.

Spock, already checked over by M’Benga, said nothing, merely allowed McCoy the task of running the tricorder over him. It gave them both something to do, other than wait for Jim.

In the middle of the useless chest scan, McCoy cleared his throat, glancing up at the impassive Spock, his face as smooth as ever. But for the slight thinning of his mouth and the faint crease between his eyes, McCoy would have thought it was just another day in space for him. 

But, after all this time, McCoy knew better. “Thank you, Spock,” he said after a moment, voice gruff, before going back to the scan, eyes fixed on the readings.

After long moments of silence, Spock, who was by nature not a touchy-feely kind of guy, especially with McCoy, rested his hand on McCoy’s forearm. “I will always endeavor to bring the captain back, Doctor,” he said quietly. 

The _back to you_ was heard loud and clear, and never spoken of again.

*

Looking back later, as he sat in his office with the door open, watching a sedated Jim snore softly, mouth parted slightly, McCoy couldn’t shake his nerves, the paranoia he’d felt all day. He shut his eyes and saw blood, Jim’s blood; no matter how many times he scrubbed his hands, his face, his wrists, he still felt covered in it, saturated. Grievous injury aside, it had never been this bad, the need to see Jim alive and well, to keep him in one piece. 

It was because of Jim himself, in the storeroom. Hearing Jim so somber, watching his face change and shift like it had—it was unnerving and raw, something more than their usual charged tension, as from the chess in his quarters the other evening. The match, the game, hung between them, invisible, tethering one to the other.

Across the dim room, Jim twitched and shifted in his sleep, and the snoring settled into nothing. But his breathing was deep and even, and it kept McCoy company throughout the quiet night.

*

McCoy woke up curled up in the chair in his office to the sounds of Jim being…well, _Jim_. 

“Two days? What am I going to do for two days, Chapel?”

“Not get yourself killed,” Christine said firmly. “This wasn’t your usual skirmish, Captain. You very nearly bled to death.”

Jim’s unusual silence stretched through Sickbay, tense and unreadable. Craning his neck, McCoy glanced out of his office door, his lower back throbbing with a well-developed ache. He sat up and stretched his aching muscles; just another night in his office chair, alone. 

“It didn’t seem so bad,” Jim said finally, looking quite like the scolded child. Sitting up in his biobed with the sheets rumpled around his waist, hair mussed, he looked younger than McCoy had seen him in years. Jim had the uncanny ability to carry himself with age and authority, but this wasn’t one of those times. 

Standing imperiously over him, Christine sighed and planted her hands on her hips, hair neat and tidy in her usual bun. “It took all of our efforts, Doctor McCoy’s especially, to put you back together, sir. So yes, it was that bad. It was worse,” she said bluntly. 

From a distance, McCoy could see the tension in the muscles of Jim’s throat and arms, the ferocity in his eyes. Unaffected, Christine continued, the authority in her voice unmistakable. “So you will have your two days of medical rest, because he worked too hard to keep you around for you to mess it up, sir,” she said, checking his vitals one last time before striding away. 

Across the room, through the open door, Jim’s eyes found his, and McCoy couldn’t move for a moment, couldn’t breathe with that vivid blue watching his every flinch, because there was only one _he_ Christine could have meant, and it left him at sea, exposed and raw. 

Finally, Jim gave him a small, subdued smile and looked away, down at his chest, touching the gauzed-over scar hesitantly. McCoy took a solid, deep breath, stood and shut the office door with a slow, quiet swoosh. But even alone, he felt unsteady and unsafe, like a secret had been swiped right from his fingertips.

So, he finally picked up the ball.

*

When Jim woke up next, late into gamma shift, McCoy was there, sitting a silent vigil with padd in hand. He’d been off for four hours, but he hadn’t seen the inside of his quarters for almost two days, so he didn’t see the point in starting now. M’Benga was shifting around quietly in the background, but all McCoy’s focus lay on the ease of Jim’s breathing, the pallor of his skin, the warmth radiating from every pore. 

Jim shifted, winced, and his eyes opened, gaze muggy with pain medication. “Thr y’re,” he mumbled through a yawn, nearly incomprehensible.

McCoy set aside his padd, leaning forward in his chair. “Yeah, I’m here. And if it wasn’t me here, those words would be useless,” he said, already on edge. 

“B’t it is, so th’ aren’,” Jim said, blinking away the sleep as quickly as possible. 

“Well, Jim, who else did you expect?” McCoy asked, suddenly tired, passing a hand over his eyes and through his hair.

Jim was still looking at him, mouth pursed with pain. “‘bout time. Thought you’re ‘voiding me.”

Shifting, McCoy rested his elbows on his knees, fixing Jim with a cool stare. “Had to make sure I wasn’t going to kill you myself,” he said evenly before smoothly pressing a hypo into Jim’s neck in one practiced movement.

Jim shut his eyes for a moment, jaw working under his pale skin. “Bones, I’m recovering, you want to kill me now?” he asked plaintively, a slice of an edge under his clear words. 

“What did I tell you about injuries, Jim?” McCoy said, fingers fisting, knuckles glowing white under the dim light. 

“Not to get any,” Jim deadpanned. 

“No, that’s asking too much of you,” McCoy retorted. “I said make them small, you asshole.”

“Yeah, and I told the Cardassians that, but wouldn’t you know, they didn’t give a fuck,” Jim said, voice suddenly steely, _Captainy_ , and hell no, McCoy wasn’t having any of that shit.

Bristling, McCoy sat ramrod-straight in his chair, fixing Jim with his most intimidating glare. “You _stayed_ down there,” he gritted out, jaw clenched. “You and Spock always do just about the stupidest shit, and this time isn’t any goddamn different.”

Jim frowned, eyes ice-blue and narrow. “Of course we did, the scientists—they needed us!” he protested, voice still hoarse, red flushing spottily in his cheeks.

“But you just about died this time, Jim,” McCoy said harshly, biting his words at the edges. “And yeah, the scientists needed you, but so do we.”

The angry ice in Jim’s gaze softened, the red receding, and there was something so unguarded and open about him that McCoy, he couldn’t fucking stop the words from falling from his throat, like he was some teenage fool. 

“I need you, Jim, and you almost died,” he said quietly, the back of his neck red-hot. 

Only the quiet rasp of Jim’s breathing lay between them in the sparse, silent moment. McCoy looked down at his knees, collecting some of that so-called Southern stubbornness Jim always said he envied, and then looked back up. Jim had kept his eyes on him, something quiet and open, his heart etched in the lines of his face. 

“So stick out your medical rest, and just—I don’t know, don’t fucking die on me,” McCoy said, voice gruff.

And there was the toss, veiled and shrouded as it was, but it was all McCoy could do, without acting like a fucking teenager, and he could only hope that Jim would catch it, understand what he was trying to say—

Suddenly, Jim’s face blossomed into a bright smile, not the overconfident smile of a captain or the smirk of a lusting man, but something heartfelt and alive and _real_. “I promise, Bones. I promise,” he said finally, softly, his fingers reaching out and grasping at the sleeve of McCoy’s dark blue tunic. His touch was hot on McCoy’s forearm even through the fabric.

The heavy pit in McCoy’s stomach seemed to thaw and melt somewhat, but still settled, anxiety continuing its course through his limbs. “Good. Asshole,” he added as an afterthought, leaning back in his chair. 

Jim rolled his eyes. “Don’t be such a worrywart. I’d never get to do anything fun ever again, if you and Spock had your way,” he said with a pout.

McCoy quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t team me up with Spock, I might blow an artery,” he said, picking up his padd once more. 

There was a moment of quiet, of just the beeps of the vital monitors and their breaths, and then Jim shifted, settled back against the pillows with a pained sigh. “Whatcha reading?” he asked after a moment. 

“Journal article on allergies. Right up your alley,” McCoy said dryly. 

“Is it? Read it to me, I’ll decide that,” Jim said lightly, but with a brush of something else underneath. 

McCoy glanced at him for a moment, chest tight, and then settled back comfortably, opened his mouth, and began to read. It was monotonous, boring for those not especially interested in the DNA links to certain allergies, and whether they can cross species, et cetera, but Jim’s breathing evened out, and after ten minutes or so, McCoy looked up to find Jim sound asleep, relaxed and easy against the stark white pillows. 

Smiling slightly, McCoy continued to read out loud, just in case.

*

“What’re you up to, Bones?”

McCoy didn’t even glance up from his padd at Jim’s chipper query. He’d thought he’d been safely hidden in his office, windows shaded and lights low, but when it came to Jim Kirk, he was never safe. He seemed to have found that one out the hard way, damn it. 

“Paperwork. Away missions mean more work for everyone down here,” he muttered, clicking at Sulu’s file. _Laceration to the left thigh, some blood loss, required dermal regeneration._

“Sounds peachy,” Jim said lightly, perching himself on the corner of McCoy’s desk. His constant body heat pressed against McCoy in insistent waves, unable to be ignored. After two days of medical leave, in which Jim had been in Sickbay more often than not, at McCoy’s side nearly the whole time, he’d just finished his first shift on the bridge, and had the bouncy edge to prove it.

Setting the PADD down, McCoy straightened up and stretched, muscles corded tightly in his lower back. “Nothing better than new injuries, I always say,” he said with as much ease as he could muster, meeting Jim’s gaze. “Your chest all right?”

“Yeah, good as new. You topped yourself again,” Jim said with an easy smile.

Rolling his eyes, McCoy met Jim’s gaze, the uneasy tingle back in his stomach, something he’d been unable to forget for the past few days. “If you’d stop trying to get yourself killed, I wouldn’t have to top anything.”

Jim’s eyes lit up, his mouth curled in a brief, feral grin, and McCoy groaned. “Don’t even say it, Jim.”

“You’re a horrible buzzkill, Bones,” Jim said plaintively.

McCoy smirked. “Well thank god I’ve got you, then to keep me agreeable. What’s up?” 

Jim had that _weird_ look on his face again, his usual smile softened, eyes bright as ever. “You off soon?” he asked, drumming his fingers along his uniformed thigh.

McCoy crossed his arms, cocking a brow. “Yeah, soon enough.”

“Cool,” Jim said absently, kicking his legs lightly, hitting the desk with a faint ring. 

His other eyebrow joined the first, and McCoy leaned back in his chair. “What’s going on, Jim?”

Jim shrugged. “Nothing.”

Well, that was that. Jim only talked about personal shit when he was ready. “Okay,” McCoy said, picking up his padd once more. 

“Want to have dinner tonight?”

McCoy halted mid-click, tilting his head to look up. Jim looked oddly twitchy, a faint red coloring his neck above the gold of his shirt. “Sure,” he said slowly, something tingling in his middle. “Meet you in the mess?”

“Why not come to my quarters? I picked up some real bottled beer on our last shore leave, don’t want the rest of the crew to get jealous,” Jim rattled off, smile sharp in the artificial light. 

The hair on the nape of McCoy’s neck prickled up. “Sounds good.”

Jim grinned widely, the sort of smile that made everyone in the room perk up, even (albeit begrudgingly) McCoy. “Excellent. See you tonight. 1900 hours.”

McCoy nodded once more; with that, Jim hopped off his desk and strolled out of his office and through Sickbay, looking quite satisfied. For once, McCoy thought he knew why, and it made him anxious and nervous and jesus was that _excitement_? He was over thirty for god’s sake, not fifteen-fucking-years-old.

“What was _that_ about?”

Christine stood in the open doorway, eyes twinkling.

“What was what?” he asked gruffly, a weird tingle sitting at the base of his spine.

Tucking a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear, she cocked her hip, hand pale against the white uniform. “Did the captain have other injuries?”

“Other than losing quarts of his goddamn blood on my floor a few days ago? No,” he muttered, completely uninterested in having this particular conversation with Christine, who had an oddly vested interest in his relation— _friendship_ with Jim.

“So a social call?”

For the love of god—“I reckon so. Asked about having dinner together,” he said tersely.

“Alone?” she asked archly.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing up at her. 

Christine smirked knowingly. “Sounds nice.”

McCoy scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” she said lightly.

“It’s just dinner, we’ve had dinner before,” he groused.

“Yes, but near-death experiences help men reorganize their priorities, so I’ve heard,” she said, settling herself on the corner of his desk, where Jim had just been. 

Rubbing his brow, he ran fingers through his hair, pushing back the errant bangs. “The Enterprise is Jim’s priority, Christine.”

“He can have other ones, too,” she said with a wink. “Looks like the ball’s back with you.”

“Get out of my office!” he exclaimed, flushing at the nape of his neck. 

“If you want advice on outfits, let me know!” she called with a soft laugh as she scooted out of the office and back towards the storeroom. 

*

This, this was just stupid. 

McCoy was stupid. Jim was stupid. All of this, it was stupid.

Three days ago, McCoy had his fingers in Jim’s chest, and now they were eating dinner in his quarters.

It was _awkward_ , too, which didn’t happen so often with them. Sure, there were drunk, hazy moments at the Academy when Jim leaned in mouth-first and McCoy entertained the notion, but it always passed and settled into their usual routine, just tiny blips of moments on the large radar of their intertwined lives. Now that they were ship-bound, those moments happened less often, as did the drunkenness, but, just as in the storeroom both times of recent, there were glances and breath-catches, always something odd between them, like the universe was just waiting them out to see who blinked first. 

Now, with steak and corn and biscuits and potatoes and real beer, it was more odd than usual, Jim watching him from across the tiny table, hardly touching his food, just _watching_. Jim Kirk, he wasn’t a watcher, McCoy knew this. Jim was a man of action, not of patience. 

“Jim,” McCoy said finally, after nothing but easy-but-hard small talk and light-but-heavy laughter, “you’re not eating.”

“Not so hungry, I guess,” Jim said quickly, not taking his eyes from McCoy.

Seriously, this was _stupid_. 

“This is a date, isn’t it?” McCoy asked abruptly. 

Jim blinked, eyes bluer than blue, wide and open and unbreakable. Then, just as bluntly: “Uh, yeah.”

At that, McCoy nearly fell out of his damn chair, mostly due to Jim’s ease. “Oh,” he sputtered finally, the steak suddenly feeling like lead in his stomach. 

Jim raised a brow, almost a mockery of McCoy’s trademark expression. “I asked you out, Bones. Didn’t you notice?”

Mouth agape, McCoy just breathed silently, unable to even form words. Jim used the opportunity to slip out of his chair and walk over to McCoy’s chair, his fingers softly curling over McCoy’s wrist. “I thought I was pretty obvious,” Jim said quietly, a smile brightening the whole room. “I mean, there was the chess—“

“You like chess,” McCoy said, voice low.

“You don’t,” Jim said pointedly, perching himself on the corner of the table, his body heat nearly bowling McCoy over. “And then you said, you know, in Sickbay—“

“I remember,” McCoy said hurriedly. 

Jim’s fingers remained on his wrist, laying gently, warmly, welcoming. “So now it’s dinner. And we’ll do dinner a few times, and then, well, you know—“

“But why now?” McCoy said, his heart awkwardly lodged between throat and chest (when did that happen?), the nerves across his body alive and screaming for _something_. 

Jim pursed his lips, brow furrowed, as if McCoy was some transporter equation he couldn’t wrap his mind around. “Well, hell, Bones, I don’t know. You had your hands inside me three days ago,” he said with half a leer.

“Jim, shut your mouth,” McCoy snapped, pushing back from the table and pacing back from Jim. 

“I was kidding, Bones,” Jim interjected quickly, mouth shifting into a soft smile, intimate, slow. “But honestly, I don’t know. You just—you’re here. You came into space with me. You gave half your storeroom to a colony full of moronic scientists, and you only complained because you knew we expected it. You play chess with me even though you hate it—“

He trailed off, shrugging, and McCoy couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, just the faint tingle that yes, he still had a body, and yes, it was still there, in the room, on the ship. “Well, Jim, of course I do all those things,” he drawled.

Eyes shining, Jim got to his feet, muscles tense and fists clenched. “I nearly died, yeah. I tried to tell you, then, but I didn’t—I didn’t want it to be about dying. I think we’ve both had enough people leave us as it is. We’ve been bouncing back and forth from this point for years, Bones, and I’m ready to stop,” he said, voice low and fierce with sincerity.

It echoed in McCoy’s bones, reverberated in his chest, quieting his trumpeting nerves. “Yeah,” he said finally, quietly, shoulders loose. “I think I am, too.”

Jim flashed him a small grin, eyes still hooded with nervous energy. “Don’t sound so fucking distraught about it,” he said uneasily.

“Fuck off,” McCoy retorted, feeling suddenly tired in a good way and very relaxed. “So. Dinner.”

“Dates,” Jim corrected helpfully, gaze bright.

“But we do this all the time,” McCoy said, walking casually back towards the table and settling back in his chair.

Jim was now much closer, tall and blond over his chair. “But now I get to recite you poetry, Bones,” he said with a smirk, a hand resting on the back of McCoy’s chair, fingertips hot on his shoulder blades, through the uniform.

McCoy groaned, rolling his eyes. “You’re shitting me.”

“I memorized one just for tonight!” Jim said, voice all glee and enthusiasm, still standing next to McCoy’s chair. 

“Is it Keats?” McCoy teased, raising a brow.

Furrowing his brow, Jim sighed. “Uncool, Bones. I hate it when you get all weirdly psychic,” he said, meandering back to his own chair.

McCoy watched him, mouth suddenly dry. “What if I made date night a no-poetry night?”

Jim glared at him over melting candlesticks (which had to be a hazard on a spaceship, but McCoy wouldn’t say anything). “You’re such a buzzkill.”

“Where have I heard that before?” McCoy asked dryly. “So really, why now?”

“If I tell you, do I get a poem?”

McCoy sighed. “Sure, Jim. You get a poem.”

Jim grinned, all white teeth and blue _blue_ eyes. “My mom.”

Well, bowl _him_ over. “Your mother?” McCoy repeated blankly.

Shrugging, Jim drummed his fingers on the table, still ignoring his food. “Well, she always asks about you. Always wants to know how you’re _handling space_ , and then she says stuff about how odd it was for you to be on a starship, blah blah— This last time, she said I was wasting precious time,” he said quietly. “She’s always been one of those live to the fullest types, especially after, you know—“

“I got it, yeah,” McCoy said quietly, thinking of blood and Jim’s heart in his hands, Jim trying to form his name, grasp his hand, his hair—

“Bones?”

Mouth thin, he looked up at a very alive Jim, held his gaze through flickering candlelight and steam. “Remind me to send her an excellent birthday gift,” he said finally. 

Jim relaxed visibly, his smile all but blinding. “We both will. How about that poem?”

Despite his smile, McCoy groaned, shut his eyes. “Fine.”

Silent for a moment, McCoy heard nothing but the hum of the ship, Jim’s soft breathing, _home_. Somehow, this bucket of bolts was home, and he had a funny feeling it had to do with the reckless blond jerk he was eating dinner with (and now, apparently dating). 

Abruptly, he wondered who would win the pool onboard. There had to be one about them between the crew by now.

Then, he felt Jim’s hands on his wrists, gentle and warm, and all his nerves came alive with wanting, with _longing_ and he forgot all about the crew and pools and ships. Jim’s breath, light on his cheek and ear, the shock of heat from his body, his knees pressed against McCoy’s thigh. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star…” he murmured into McCoy’s ear, mouth brushing his temple.

Opening his eyes, McCoy wriggled one of Jim’s hands from his arm and smacked him in the ribs. “Jackass,” he muttered, now fully aware of how close Jim really was. 

Leaning over, one hand braced on McCoy’s thigh, the other on his arm, Jim grinned at him. “Gotcha,” he said, voice low and warm, before leaning in and kissing McCoy on the mouth, just a soft brush of air and something grassy and woodsy, the familiar smell of _Jim_. 

Jim’s mouth was soft and yielding, just lips and moist breath. He didn’t push, however much McCoy wanted him to, and it took McCoy’s upward surge of teeth and tongue, a lick at his bottom lip, a hand moving from his shoulder to his chest, right over his heart, to get Jim to press in closer. Jim licked into his mouth finally, tasting of beer and salt and something fresh, a breath of air. He could feel Jim’s pulse through his skin, safely, without worrying about whether it was going to drop or spike from anything threatening. 

“Fuck, Bones, look at you all assertive and shit,” Jim breathed against his mouth, lips red and spit-slick. 

McCoy gripped Jim’s freshly-starched, plain white button-down, a fancy shirt for a starship (and _that_ should have been his first clue, goddamnit), fingers curling in the collar. “You’re such a child,” he muttered, kissing Jim once more. 

“I was trying to take it _slow_ ,” Jim said with a low, hoarse chuckle.

“I’m not about to start sex gymnastics, if that’s what you mean,” McCoy retorted, mouth still just breaths away from Jim’s. 

Jim rolled his eyes, leaning up straight, flushed and smiling. “Lead me on, why don’t you,” he deadpanned, a hand trailing along the line of McCoy’s arm. 

“It’s the other way around, Jim,” McCoy said dryly before kissing Jim once more, letting himself go. It was always the other way around, but McCoy didn’t mind. He’d made his choice long ago.

*

“There’s a pool, you know.”

“Jim, what the holy fuck—“

“I wonder who’ll win.”

“No one, if you don’t move your fucking hand, because I’ll fucking kill you for being a goddamn cocktease—“

“I don’t want it to be someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

“Jim— _really_ , come the fu—“

“I didn’t realize you’d be so chatty in bed, Bones. Jesus, you’re hot as all fuck.”

“…”

“Seriously, if I knew a simple hand job would shut up you, we’d have done this ages ago. Now, every time you even _think_ of berating me—“

“Big word for a young kid— _oh fuck_ —“

“See, like that—now I know. I can just drag you into your office and jack you off until you chill out. Or I could blow you, either way.”

“Oh god _fucking_ Jesus—“

“And you thought we were just going to make out for a while. Gotcha.”

*

“So?”

McCoy glanced up at Christine from a padd, standing in the middle of his blessedly-empty sickbay. “So what?”

She smiled, teeth shiny-white in the bright lights. “How was dinner?”

Looking back down at the small flashing screen, he smiled faintly, just a touch of a curve at the corner of his mouth. “It was nice,” he said finally, voice even.

“Just nice?” she wheedled.

Cocking a brow, he looked her over carefully. “You have this month in the pool, don’t you,” he said after a long moment, trying not to let himself smirk.

Gaping for a moment, she flushed pink in her cheeks. “Maybe.”

Well, if anyone deserved it—“Collect the pot, Christine,” he said with a nod. “But you owe us a drink on our next shore leave.”

With that, he went into his office, leaving her grinning in sickbay. Jim would like this. He'd approve.

*


End file.
